Q. How does the keyboard work? How is it different from a standard (QWERTY) keyboard?

A. The stenotype machine differs from a typewriter in that a single key or any number of keys in any combination can be depressed at the same time. Thus, a syllable or word is written with one keystroke rather than using a separate keystroke for each letter. This is one of the reasons words can be written on the stenotype machine so much faster than they can be typed on the standard (QWERTY) keyboard. Most words are written phonetically on the stenotype keyboard.